Michael Degen

Michael Degen (31 January 1928 – 9 April 2022) was a German-Israeli actor, in film and theatre, as well as a theatre director and writer.

Early life Born in Chemnitz as the younger son of Jewish parents, Degen survived the Holocaust in Berlin, while his older brother was sent to Palestine via Denmark and Sweden. His father, Jacob Degen, was a language professor and businessman of Russian Jewish descent. On 13 September 1939, Jacob Degen was arrested by the Secret State Police and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Subjected to severe abuse over the weeks that followed, he was released on 2 February 1940 but never recovered from his injuries, dying shortly afterward. To survive, Michael and his mother, Anna, hid in a Berlin allotment until the end of the war.

In 1946, Degen appeared on stage for the first time Degen served as a soldier in Israel and acted in theatres in Tel Aviv. In 1955–1956, he worked with the Schauspiel Köln. From 1956 to 1963 he was at the Mannheim National Theatre, followed by the Schauspiel Frankfurt in 1963–1964. A reviewer of The Times wrote of Degen's acting in Harry Buckwitz's 1965 Hamlet production at Schauspiel Frankfurt, "Nervously impulsive and sometimes violently emotional". Degen performed in Munich, Salzburg and Hamburg and worked with directors including Ingmar Bergman, George Tabori Peter Zadek and Claude Chabrol. and Adam in Kleist's The Broken Jug. He was also a director: his premiere was in Goethe's Urfaust in 1972. He was a director for four years at the , Munich. In Franz Peter Wirth's Buddenbrooks television adaptation (1979), he played the role of Bendix Grünlich. His last role was the vain Vice-Questore Patta in the television series Donna Leon.

Degen wrote in his 1999 debut (Not All Were Murderers. A childhood in Berlin.) about his own experiences during the Nazi era.

Personal life Degen lived with his third wife in Hamburg.

Awards 1969 Großer Hersfeld-Preis 1988 2003

Selected filmography Source:

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Writings and